Chapter 26

  From the second day on, the temporarily formed 7th squad began training with the soldiers from the headquarters.

  In the morning, I first went for a five-kilometer armed cross-country run, and then had breakfast after finishing.

  Apart from some wounded, the physical quality of these new guerrilla fighters seems to be quite good. A small team of soldiers trains like this every day and has already gotten used to it. But after five kilometers with full equipment, most soldiers are still quite tired, while on the other hand, these newcomers seem less tired, and most don't look particularly exhausted. This is Li Tie's conclusion from observing them.

  The intense training session that started after breakfast made Li Tie feel even more uneasy.

  A small team of warriors mostly picked up their guns and started training on the straw man, without even checking for bullets. Some of the new recruits checked if there were bullets in the gun, and one member even skillfully ejected the bullet before starting to fight the dummy. Their movements looked very clumsy, basically just ordinary people's movements, just holding a gun to stab at the dummy. After a while, they were all sweating profusely.

  The team leader on one side couldn't bear it anymore. He let a soldier with better tactics be their instructor and teach them bayonet fighting.

  Slowly, their movements began to become uniform and standardized. But in Li Tie's eyes, it was a different story altogether.

  Li Tie has already seen that the military quality of these people is much better than that of ordinary soldiers. Just take the bayonet training just now, for example. Most of their movements are even more standardized than those of the instructors. If they really fight with a small team of soldiers, I'm afraid the small team won't have any advantage, and may even pay a heavy price.

  Why did they hide their true strength?

  Four days later, all the wounded returned to their posts after recovery.

  It's even more unbelievable that Li Tie had never given them penicillin or other special medicines, but only used some herbal medicine.

  Is this the actual strength of Donghai County's guerrilla force?

  Since they were all fully manned, and the superior did not give a clear answer, Li Tie and Er Gou District Chief decided to send them for a real battle to test their loyalty.

  Saying is doing, Er Gou District Captain Li Tie led the Fox Team and the Seventh Team to attack a small town controlled by the Japanese puppet army.

  Because the town was far from the base, Li Tie decided to drive there by car.

  When the seventh squad saw the car, they didn't have the same curious look as when Li Tie first brought the car back. Instead, everyone seemed to be familiar with it and climbed aboard with ease, standing by the side and holding onto the railing as if it was a matter of course.

  All of this made Li Tie feel bewildered.

  Upon arrival at their destination, Li Tie led everyone on foot towards the town.

  Intelligence shows that there are only a small number of devils and some puppet troops in the town, but no large devil troops.

  This is also the result of Er Gou District Captain's careful consideration. If this guerrilla team was really a resistance team and suffered too much damage due to their own reasons, it would be a big loss. So they found this small town to try it out.

  Calling it a town is actually an exaggeration, it's just a few slightly larger villages that are close together.

  Li Tie led everyone to quickly occupy the advantageous terrain.

  It never occurred to the devils that this small place, lacking in food and supplies, and unimportant in strategic location, would be subject to a surprise attack by the Eighth Route Army.

  Using an axe to kill a chicken.

  The bandit lair and the pseudo-army's garrison were together, quickly and directly surrounded by Li Tie.

  When the fake army sentries discovered Li Tie and his men, it was too late. The entire stronghold had been surrounded. Except for the dark gun barrels and the occasional glimpse of a person's shadow, there were no escape routes left. Even the outer fortifications outside the stronghold had already been occupied by the Eighth Route Army - at that time, no one was on duty inside.

  There isn't a single devil in the stronghold, only about twenty puppet soldiers are left. The devils have all returned to the county town and there are only devils here during the daytime. Now it's already past five o'clock in the afternoon, the devils have gone back to enjoy themselves.

  But even so, what's meant to be beaten must be beaten, or else it would have been a wasted trip.

  Li Tie gave an order and everyone fired at the enemy position simultaneously.

  The pseudo-army in the stronghold had already called for help to the county town when they saw that they were surrounded by the Eighth Route Army. But judging from the current situation, bullets are flying over like they're free, it's estimated that before reinforcements arrive, they'll either be captured or killed by the overwhelming number of enemy troops.

  It's just a small stronghold, is it worth it? Even all the bullets in my own stronghold aren't as many as I wasted just now. After thinking about it again and again, I still decided to surrender.

  Then a dirty white shirt was hung on a branch and floated in the air above the stronghold.

  Li Tie is so annoying, why can't he hold on a bit longer, he hasn't even made his move yet.

  Li Tie waved his hand and let everyone go to accept the surrender.

  The Fox Team and the Seventh Team went forward together, confiscated the pseudo-army's weapons, moved away everything in the stronghold, not even leaving a telephone line behind, and even dug out a small package containing silver dollars from the wall hole of the stronghold, an extremely ruthless Three Alls.

  The first attempt at exploration ended in failure.

  Still have to think of another way.

  Li Tie has been away from the mountain cave base for several days. He stared at the temporary seventh squad all day, whether it was training or learning, even eating and going to the toilet.

  After several days of observation, there were indeed gains.

  First, let's look at the food. The local cuisine is quite good. There are wheat flour and millet, of course, they also eat coarse grains. When eating wheat flour, the seventh squad didn't have any special expression, just like eating the most ordinary rice. And when eating coarse grains, there was no expression either, as long as it's mealtime, they would eat, regardless of what they were eating, completely unbothered. One sentence: Unfazed by fortune or misfortune. Could it be that they often eat wheat flour? This is something only the devils can do frequently! Even if there is wheat flour, it's impossible for it to taste like the devils', at least the devils' wheat flour is finer and makes whiter steamed buns.

  Moreover, Li Tie often found that Captain Wang and a relatively short team member named Wang Jiasen walked particularly close together. Sometimes, they even had to discuss some matters with Wang Jiasen (or possibly obey him, but it was too far away to hear clearly).

  Li Tie carefully observed Wang Jia Sheng and found that the skin under his nose seemed to be a bit whiter, as if he had shaved off his mustache.

  That's right, if I shaved off my beard and stuck this small bunch of hair on, then I would look just like a Japanese person.

  At this point, Li Tie suddenly understood everything.

  This is a group of Japanese devils disguised as guerrillas. The original guerrilla force may have fallen into their trap.

  Li Tie immediately told Er Gou District Captain about the situation. Er Gouzi was anxious at that time, and didn't they just arrest them?

  "No rush, now that we know about this matter, we can control him. I want to see what they're going to do next."

  Li Tie studied Japanese as a foreign language in college. According to the dean of their department at the time, Japan had advanced equipment and most of the devices they would use in the future were made in Japan, so it was necessary to learn Japanese. As for English, everyone could study it on their own. So Li Tie threw away the English he had studied for seven or eight years and started learning Japanese again. Fortunately, Li Tie's major was a new one, and they were the first batch of students, with fewer people and more teachers, who were all newly recruited from foreign language schools and were enthusiastic. Unlike universities now, where there are tens of thousands of students, with hundreds or thousands of students in each department and major, it would be strange if teachers could teach them properly. At that time, the new teachers were all young people, and when they had nothing to do, they would study and play together with the students, forming a strong bond. It was also in this environment that Li Tie's Japanese learning progressed very quickly, and by the first year, he could already have simple conversations with his teachers. In his sophomore year, the college invited two foreign teachers for their major, and Li Tie's Japanese improved even faster, even developing a strong Tokyo flavor - the two foreign teachers were from Tokyo.

  Li Tie decided to use his own Japanese language to see if he could infiltrate the group of devils.

  It's dark outside, dinner was eaten long ago, and most of the warriors have fallen asleep. Outside the dormitory of the Seventh Squad, in front of Wang Jia Sheng's quarters, a black shadow flashed by.

  A small paper ball wrapped around a stone was thrown into the house.

  There was nothing written on the paper, only a small cherry blossom drawn. As for what it meant, Li Tie didn't know either, let the devils guess.

  The next day, nothing happened, the second dog district captain didn't receive any reports, and Wang Jia Sheng also acted as if nothing had happened, only that his eyes were always looking around all day.

  The sky has turned dark again, and another small piece of paper has come out, but this time with words on it. Japanese characters, written in pencil: "Meet at the tree behind the barracks tomorrow after lunch, something important."

  After lunch, everyone has some free time.

  The next day, after dinner, Wang Jia Sheng went to the tree behind the house on time. Of course, there were people from the seventh squad nearby who were secretly keeping watch.

  Wang Jia Sheng arrived at the house and saw that it was Li Tie, he was quite shocked. Through his understanding of the past few days, he already knew that this Li Tie's position in the district team was not as simple as a small team leader, and even for some important matters, District Chief Zhao would ask for his opinion. Could Li Tie be Japanese?

  Arriving under the tree, Wang Jia Sheng didn't say a word, he just stared at Li Tie.

  "Konnichiwa, ah, biji maji na no ichi" (Good afternoon, this is not a game), said Li Tie in a thick Tokyo accent.

  "You're kidding me." Wang Jia Sheng blurted out in Japanese.

  "In a foreign place, try not to use our native language as much as possible to avoid unexpected situations."

  "What kind of person are you?"

  "It doesn't matter who I am, but I know that your actions this time have already raised suspicions from the other side."

  "What? Impossible, no one can know."

  "Nothing is impossible. You have exposed yourselves by your actions."

  "Please give me more guidance." Wang Jia Sheng bowed, a typical Japanese gesture. It seemed that he had slightly relaxed his guard against me. Li Tie secretly rejoiced.

  "There are several flaws in your actions. Firstly, when you were eating, you didn't show enthusiasm for the white rice. A guerrilla unit wouldn't often get to eat white rice, and they should be very excited and eager to eat it when they see it. Unfortunately, you didn't show that. Secondly, the Eighth Route Army doesn't retreat with bullets during a bayonet charge, but some of you retreated with bullets during training. Thirdly, ordinary guerrillas would have a certain expression when seeing cars - can you guess what it is? Even after getting on the car, they need someone to remind them to hold onto the handrail. Did anyone remind you? There are many other places where you didn't do well enough. If you continue like this, it will be difficult for you to complete your mission."

  Li Tielian said a mix of true and false things, completely confusing the devil. After careful consideration, it really is like that.

  Wang Jia Sheng's forehead was already beading with fine sweat, frightened by his own actions. He had thought he had done a perfect job, but unexpectedly there were still so many loopholes.

  "Thank you for reminding me, what should I call you?"

  "My title is of no importance, have you heard of Sakura Ou?"

  "Could it be that you are the renowned Cherry Blossom King?"

  I was just kidding about someone, and it turns out there really is such a person.

  "I never said it, but you need to know one thing, actually, I'm an undercover."